Vibe Shift

 Ever since the debate, I felt like I was living in free fall. My blood pressure was up and I felt nauseous a lot of the time. Only vigorous exercise could alleviate it (I guess that's an upside).

After Biden's announcement, I've started to feel a little better - not perfect, but better. I am going to try really hard not to look at polls for about a week, because they are unlikely to mean much until the Democratic convention.

However, it seems clear that Democrats as a whole felt like I did. We would crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump, even if that meant voting for a frail old man. When the debate happened, my feeling was that Biden "let the side down" because we wanted a champion; we wanted someone to finally slay the dragon. He failed at that, profoundly. If anything it fed the dragon. 

Harris is going to be able to prosecute a vigorous case against Trump. She is a much better spokesperson for Roe; her past as a prosecutor was a bit of liability in the 2020 primary, but it will look good against Trump (the cop v the criminal).

The freak out in GOP circles has been really interesting to see. They predicated their whole race on Biden's age and infirmity. Now, they are trying to figure out a new line of attack, and I'd say the odds are pretty good it's going to be sexist and racist as hell. (They are already dusting off birtherism for another spin.)

It's very tempting to look at 2016 and wonder if a woman can win the presidency at all. Hillary Clinton was arguably as qualified a candidate to be president as anyone who ever ran, and she lost to a reality TV star who had been caught on a hot mic bragging about sexual assault. At lot has happened since then, though. Hillary has been proven right again and again. If the GOP goes full sexist pigs against Harris, at some point there has to be a revulsion against that - even by the sort of man who thinks sexism isn't really a big deal. You can only rub people's faces in something for so long before they can't ignore it.

Harris has given grimly determined Democrats some hope. She has done masterfully well in locking up the nomination so quickly. Will Rogers old joke of "I don't belong to an organized political party; I'm a Democrat" no longer holds true. The money she has raised...holy crap!

This race is far from over. If anything, I think we can reasonably expect three or four more unprecedented events. (Trump is talking about dumping Vance, hilariously.) I would expect Trump to dodge his debate with Harris, to whatever effect that might have on the race. 

Still, hopeful is good. I think we all needed some "hopium" at this point.